Fly Fishing Lines
FLY FISHING LINE STRENGTH
The enameled line is made very heavy compared with the soft light line used in bait casting. Bait casters judge their lines by their test in pounds and it is for the benefit of the bait caster taking up fly fishing that I bring up this subject. No ordinary fly rod can lift three pounds and experiments show that a fish pulls approximately its own weight - and a standard Size E fly line tests around 25 pounds! It is a good plan to snip off an inch or so of line from time to time. Failure to do so has often resulted in a lost fish.
CARE OF THE LINE
Whether one uses a hard or soft enameled, level or tapered line it should be given proper care as a well-treated line improves with use and a good one should last several seasons of hard fishing.
The best and simplest treatment for a hard enameled line is an occasional rubbing with the line dressing the line manufacturers make for the purpose.
Vacuum lines should be frequently dressed with deer fat or mutton tallow. This is sold in flat tin boxes and the best way to apply it is to run the line through it, taking care that the line does not rub against the sharp edge of the box. Then rub it down thoroughly with a pigskin line greaser or an old leather glove. This treatment is used primarily to make the line float for dry fly fishing but it also serves to keep the line supple and in good condition. After being long in use a vacuum dressed line can be returned to the factory for re-enameling at a nominal charge, which is one of the advantages of having an American-made line.
Tournament casters add to the fat treatment a coating of powdered graphite which they polish until it shines like the proverbial " nigger's heel." This enables the caster to make long " shoots " but is " mussy " and makes the line unduly conspicuous in the water and is of no value in fishing.
Sand is bad for an enameled line. The line should be dried after being used and all sand removed. A line should not be kept on the reel any longer than necessary. After a day's fishing I strip all line from the reel and leave reel and line on a chair and rewind it on just before leaving for the stream.
Between trips and during the winter the line should be removed from the reel and either coiled in a large, loose hank and thrown in a drawer or stored on a large line dryer or grooved hoop made for storing a line. Treated thus, one's line will be free from kinks when he keeps his tryst with the fishes the following spring.
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